Trying to decide on first (maybe only) handplane

I’m trying to decide between a jack plane (15”) and a jointer plane (22”). I do not have another hand plane and I do not have an electric jointer. The immediate need I have is that I need to flatten and smooth a 15×60” slab and my thickness planer maxes at 12.5”. Plus, I also know a thickness planer isn’t good at correcting bow or twist. From everything I read, a bevel-up jack plane is the best all-around handplane, but I think a bevel up jointer plane would do everything I want, and would be more accurate for longer boards. Aside from weight, is there a good reason for me to go with a jack plane over a jointer? I am considering the Veritas planes. Thanks for any help.

-- Billy, Florence SC

31 replies so far

Jack and jointer have different uses.Jack to rough, and jointer to flatten. In addition a smoother is needed to finish the job the others have started.A jack (of all trades) can have multiple purposes depending on the grind on the blades. Heavily cambered for roughing, square ground for jointing, and a slight corner camber for smoothing.Just my thoughts.Bill

I usually find myself reaching for a fore plane (#6 – 18”) before I would go for a jointer. Once the slab is looking ok, I switch to the jack (#5) and then the smoother (#4). If you have a router, there are plenty of jigs here on LJ used to flatten slabs for live edge work.

Thanks Bill,I understand the concept and why people choose to have two or three different planes. I am hoping to get what I need done with one high-quality plane, then maybe buy a second on down the road. It might not be the plane you’d design for it, but couldn’t a jointer do all these things too? The same blades are interchangeable on the Veritas that I mentioned. The only real design difference I see is that the jointer does not have a smooth side, for a shooting board. Aside from that (which would be significant to some, but not me right now) I don’t see a drawback to using the jointer.

I use a jointer, Fore, and smoother regularly. I love my jointer plane . . . but . . . As a really big plane, it really is good at one thing and one thing only. If your board is rough, warped, bowed, etc., the length makes it hard to use to get some of those high spots out of the way. That is, the more uneven the board is initially, the less useful the jointer is. It may be your best choice for this kind of work, but it will still be limited.

I’d rather get 2-3 good used stanley’s than one new Veritas in your situation.

-- "Man is the only animal which devours his own, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor." ~Thomas Jefferson

Ok let me ask the question this way… Do you think I can effectively straighten and smooth a 15×60” slab using a 15” jack plane, or would I need to go to a longer plane for this? Disregard effort and time for the most part. I might do this once a year. Thanks.

Okay, so if you are going to do that size piece once a year, and that’s why your buying a plane, I guess I’d do jointer, knowing that the initial high spot flattening will take a little longer, but the ultimate flattening will be easier.

-- "Man is the only animal which devours his own, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor." ~Thomas Jefferson

Sorry to be contrary, but I’d suggest a jack plane. Method will get you reasonably smooth, and a jointer is simply too much iron to heft around to rough in a 15” x 60” slab. A jointer is also that much further away from being a smoother than a jack…

-- Don't anthropomorphize your handplanes. They hate it when you do that. -- OldTools Archive --

For 15” by 60” a Jack plane would probably be my suggestion as well. A jointer is a great plane but a Jack is something you can use for a lot more than flattening boards. So yea while I would probably reach for my cambered number 6 and straight blade number 7 for a job like this myself if I could only have one plane it would be a low angle jack as it can do everything from flattening to smoothing with a couple different irons.

I know nothing about it but I saw a newish Woodriver (Woodcrafts house brand) low angle jack that at least on first look seemed like a pretty nice tool. Again I haven’t used it so don’t take this as a endorsement more a suggestion of someplace you could look. I love my Lie-Neilson low angle jack but I’m not sure I would suggest that to someone who wasn’t sure how much use they where going to get out of it. Low angle jacks on the used market are insane expensive so not worth the trouble to me.

I recommend you buy a used or refurbished vintageBailey type jack plane. You can get them on ebayor from a couple of users here who fix them up.They work very adequately when tuned.

Jointers are pretty heavy and you’ll get tired quickerif you have to do all your stock removal with a jointer. Furthermore the long sole actually interfereswith smoothing surfaces so if you want the benefit of what planes can do to both flatten and reduce sanding time, you’re going to needa jack and/or a smoother.

For most flattening the jointer plane is not necessaryand in my opinion is not only tiring but slowerthan using a jack.

I wouldn’t drop $300 on a jointer plane unless I knew I’d use it a lot for flattening large boards, and even then a power tool solution sounds a lot more appealing. I’m not sure I’d spend that much on a tool I only use once a year, but I don’t run a production shop.

I picked up a set of planes, including a Stanley #7, for about $50 from the pawn shop earlier this year. It was a super lucky find, I admit…but you can find #7 planes in decent condition on eBay for $50-$100.

Also I know this won’t help you on this particular board, but there are a lot of articles on how to use a planer sled and shims to correct twisted, warped, and cupped boards. You just need to shim the high spots so the planer’s pressure rollers can’t flex the board flat. If it’s cupped, put the cup facing down (so the outside edges are touching the sled and the middle is not).

I have a bevel-up jack and I do not agree that it isthe best all-round plane. The low angle makes for more hassle with sharpening. The bevel downplanes have a wider range of side to side adjustmentwhere bevel up planes have to be sharpened almostdead-square. Additionally a camber on a bevel upplane must be more pronounced to produce thesame cut as a camber in a bevel down plane andthe more pronounced the camber, the more hassleit is to maintain.

Lacking a chipbreaker a bevel up plane can onlybe adjusted for uncooperative grain by switchingout the iron or closing the mouth, while a standardbench plane can, with nuanced manipulation of the chipbreaker, emulate a plane pitched at10 or more degrees higher than the 45 degreepitch. Chipbreakers were a revolution in hand plane design because they allowed craftsmen tojettison the smoothers bedded at various pitches and get more or less the same work done with one plane.

It took me a long time to really appreciate thechipbreaker. It cannot solve every problem butit can help solve a lot of them.

I also think that a low angle is of minor benefit inplaning end grain. The bevel-up planes have moredepth-adjustment sensitivity and combined withvery keen sharpening this can make working endgrain seem easier. I will tell you though, that forhardwoods in general a keenly adjusted bevel-downplane can perform very well on end grain. If workingwoods like pine and cedar on the end where the fibers are inclined to collapse into their neighbors rather than shear off, low bevel angles can help encourage shearing. Such soft woods are difficult to work to fine levels of detail and I don’t reallyrecommend them for fine furniture… with durability,structural strength and tendency to get bruisedother concerns. In short, firmer woods are easierto work with and can be worked very well andwith a lot of adaptability with bevel down planes.